My travels

Posted on 18th March 2009

Hello there – this is my first ever blog post and I thought I’d start off with a little summary of where I’ve travelled – if I don’t start writing it down, I’m afraid I’ll start forgetting about all the amazing places I’ve been! So here goes:

My adult travelling days started when I left school with my first trip to London in 1994. After I finished studying, I then lived in London for 3 years between 1996 and 1999 (who didn’t!) and travelled to the USA and Europe from there – oh how I miss the pound!

In Europe I visited Switzerland, Italy, France, Austria and Germany. Most of these trips were skiing holidays – the beautiful Hopftgarten in Austria and Wengen in Switzerland.France was a romantic trip to Paris which cost a fortune and all I can remember is there was a lot of dog shite everywhere and the French people were so rude and unfriendly – until we spoke Afrikaans to them, but the buildings and architecture were phenomenal. Oh, and romance didn’t blossom!

In the USA I did a cross country drive from Omaha Nebraska down the east coast via Miami & Fort Lauderdale, to Key West and then back up through the deep south, visiting such gems as Padukah in Kentucky, Nashville Tennessee and the Jack Daniels Distillery and driving through Bill Clinton country in Arkansas, where the roads were HORRENDOUS! Also skiied in Colorado at Loveland and Keystone where with the combined temperature and wind chill factor is was -40 degrees. Not ideal for a South African…

I did a stint in Greece with some friends on the island of Kefalonia where ‘Captain Corellis Mandolin’ was filmed years later. Afterwards I travelled around Turkey with my housemate for a month, starting in Istanbul and doing a round trip on the Fez Bus to Canakkale, Izmir, Selcuk, Ephesus, Kusadasi, Bodrum, Marmaris, Fethiye, Kas (where I bought the most beautiful Turkish carpet) Antalya, Konya, Cappadocia, Ankara and back to Istanbul. All along the route we stayed in different types of accommodation – tree houses in the forests of Olympus, huts on the beach in Marmaris, caves in Goreme and backpacker hostels in some of the small cities – this made the experience very authentic and hugely unforgettable.

On my return to South Africa in 1999, my first big trip was to Namibia where I spent a week seeing in the 2000 millenium in Hobart, with a group of friends and a lot of tents and treehuggers! I’m almost certain this trip laid the foundations for the Afrika Burn festivals which now take place annually where large branch sculptures are burnt at the end of the festival – trendsetters we were ;)

Other African countries include Mozambique and Zimbabwe –
Mozam visits include Ponta d’Ouro, Guinjata Bay & Inhambane as well as Vilanculos – I once worked as a production manager for a company which produced game fishing shows for SuperSport and was up and on the shore at 5am filming the crews head out for a day of tag & release – oh my misspent youth!
I visited Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in 2008, with my darling grandmother, where we stayed at the beautiful Victoria Falls Safari Lodge – our trip over The Falls in a helicopter is a great memory.

In 2004 I visited my sister in Canberra, Australia and we headed to Brisbane, Sydney & Melbourne while I was there. I really enjoyed the country, especially the food, shopping and great weather. Brisbane was my favourite Aussie city and we trekked up the coast to Noosa too, to see family friends. I only managed to get back to Australia ten years later, in September 2014, when my sister had her 1st child. I was mainly in Canberra but managed to find a great apartment in Bondi Beach on AirBnB, so headed there too for a few days – it was awesome!

I went to the Maldives in 2007 with 3 girlfriends, to a private island – Kani – on a Club Med holiday, which was exquisite and highly recommended. The island is quite remote and there are no kids facilities, so it’s therefore not over -un with kids, which makes for a relaxing time. You can do pretty much everything you would expect from a beach resort/island holiday and can choose from a private lodge on the water with your own pool and access straight into the sea, or the extremely comfortable suites which face either the sea or the gardens. It’s an island – so do bear in mind that once you’ve done everything you can do on the island, there is nothing else to see or do, so make sure you LOVE suntanning as that’s it ;) Next time I head to that region, I will make sure that I stay somewhere that has far more to see and do.

Have you travelled anywhere amazing? Please do share!

UPDATE:
I thought I should update this post, seeing as though a few years have passed since I wrote it, so this is a bit more about my travelling – enjoy!
Posted in May 2015:

In 2010 it was time for a holiday back in London – I hadn’t visited since I’d lived there, so was keen to take the 2 friends I was traveling with to some of my old haunts. I have to admit, it felt like nothing had changed and I still loved the hustle of the high street and really enjoyed taking in new sights like London Eye and Borough Market. We were only there for 4 days and then jetted off to New York. It was my first visit there as an adult – I had been in 1982 with my parents and grandparents, when we visited my uncle who lived there, but I was only a small child so this was a whole new adventure! We rented an apartment (much cheaper than a hotel, especially with an odd number of 3) on the upper West Side and visited some amazing galleries, museums and bars ;)
You can read my New York posts here and have a squizz at some of the pics I took.

I took a day trip up Sani Pass with some bloggers in August 2013 – it was so cool to lunch at the highest pub in Africa at 2874 metres above sea level!

To celebrate 2013/2014 New Year’s Eve, we visited Clarens for 3 days and stayed in the Clarens Golf & Trout Estate – you can read more about that trip here.
Clarens is a hidden gem – do visit if you want an extremely relaxing long weekend with the most phenomenal landscapes and cloud formations I’ve ever seen – although I wouldn’t recommend being in the Clarens town square on new year’s eve – it was as if the whole matric rage population from the free state had descended on the village and was revving their bikes and cars all evening up until midnight – totally not my vibe. The rest of our time there was awesome though.

In January 2014, to celebrate my boyfriend’s 40th, we headed off to Italy to snowboard! This despite me never having tried it before and being totally unfit. It was nevertheless an amazing holiday, as we stayed at the amazing Pragelato Vialattea – a Club Med resort which is extremely luxurious and the food was outstanding. This resort has the shortest transfer time once arriving in Turin after flying from Joburg – and that is to be noted, as you are pretty stuffed after a flight change in Paris – quite a long journey time. I loved the whole vibe of being in Italy and the food is my best – my Italian heritage is strong! So I am hoping I will one day be able to do a cooking tour in Italy – that would be phenomenal!

I’ve been very fortunate to visit some amazing game reserves over the years and have stayed at Phinda, Mziki Private Game Reserve and Bayete Zulu. One day I hope to watch the migration in the Serengeti – that’s on my bucket list!

In South Africa, I’ve done loads of traveling – I love heading down to Cape Town or up the North Coast of KZN and have made the odd trip to Johannesburg – mostly for business or music concerts though. Most recently, we stayed at the beautiful 12 Apostles Hotel in Camps Bay, Cape Town – read more about that trip here, including our visit to their amazing spa.

I hope to travel much more in the coming years – stay tuned for more of my adventures!

wonker

About Ask Ashe

Brand Consultant + Editor

I’m Nicola Ashe - ad exec turned brand consultant, who quit the rate race in 2014, so I could finally breathe again. I live in Durban, South Africa with my husband and 3 rescue dogs and run Ask Ashe as a brand consulting business, helping people create and curate their own brands. But it's also my little space on the web, where I've shared design, decor, food, travel or lifestyle snippets since 2008.